Episode 25: Hunter and Hunted
General Summary
While in the party sat at the table, discussing their next move, the High Inquisitor left the room, proceeding up the stairs behind the table of honor. The party spoke with Callisto, Jules, and Lady Bouclier, but none of them seemed to be able to recall the true course of events.
Tired and defeated, the party was ready to resign themselves to this fate; to live a falsehood while maintaining their connections with the city was better than to start a fight they could not win, become banished, and lose their friends. But Pharos would not settle for this.
He set aside his worries and flew up to the severed head of Arctiax, held aloft above the table of the Honored Deicides, and cast Speak with Dead on it, and conjured a Zone of Truth so that all would know what the dead dragon spoke as truth.
“Who are you?” was his first question.
"Where are you from?” was the second.
“I hail from beyond the Great Wastes,” the severed head wheezed.
"Who Killed you?"
"What is your relationship to House Deveraux?"
"What would you have us do?" Pharos asked the fifth and final question.
During the conversation, a great uneasiness had fallen over House Deveraux members and Inquisitors in attendance. They had begun to slink into the shadows, invoke invisibility behind columns, and otherwise sneak out of the great hall. But House Bouclier, regularly staffed for security in the hall and prepared to detect varied forms of stealth with their enchanted helms, blocked exits and began to make arrests.
The Flamebringers made quick to follow High Inquisitor Olivier up the back stairwell after getting control of their friends, and found him in High Matron Sonilyth’s chambers, standing over her corpse with a strange knife in his hand. Boulcier guards filled the room, and made space for the Flamebringers to enter.
Honestly, I forget how this part went exactly, but it ended with the group realizing that the Olivier that was there was an illusion, he is somehow related to the Omniscient Dawn, and he softballed an offer to join him.
The party refused, rushing up the stairs in hopes of catching the real Olivier before he could get to Vyria Druex, as the heir apparent had been locked in her quarters, but the stairwell exploded with arcane energy before they could reach her. The smoke cleared and found the party stranded on different sections of wall, blown out of the Tree of Silver Night but held aloft by web-like sinews of silvery metal that slowly but surely began to bring the walls back to the tree, healing it.
Five versions of Olivier were scattered across the battlefield. Five versions of Olivier fell in battle, giving off explosions of web as they did.
However, once silence had fallen and they rushed up to Vyria’s chambers, they found her dead and Olivier gone. Her chambers were in tatters, it was clear she had put up a fight, but in the end, there were several incision wounds along her torso and a fatal puncture below her left arm that claimed her life.
But again, Pharos rose to the occasion, calling upon the Light of the Monarch to resurrect Vyria, saving the heir apparent.
In the ensuing days, there was a grand celebration that the corruption of House Deveraux had been burned out of the city by the Flamebringers. While the people celebrated, the Dreux sisters mourned the loss of their mother, but very tactfully requested the group not resurrect their mother. Not only would it go against their beliefs, but their Sonilyth was in a very fragile state when she was murdered, and it would be better for her spirit and the nation if she remained at rest. Vyria also renounced her heritage to the Matron’s throne, allowing it to pass to Dahlia, so that Vyria might lay claim to the seat of the empire that yet remained open in Heloris. She requested that they might deliver her to the capital before they go about their adventures.
In return, during Dahlia’s coronation celebration, the Flamebringers were named the Lords Flamebringer as her first act as High Matron, and given a tithe of land in the north of the Theocracy, now named Arctaxia following the dethronement of the False Arctiax. The land rests where the Gloamwood, Sylva Minerva, and Wystwood mingle along the river Malphurion; a tower named the Beacon.
And while they celebrated their victory, they could not help but notice an advisor who had taken her place at Dahlia's side. A sly dark elf with snow white skin and icy blue eyes, dressed in a red slit cocktail dress reminisce of a Dark Sun baroness they once met, but with a cold air that promised the identity of another.
Tired and defeated, the party was ready to resign themselves to this fate; to live a falsehood while maintaining their connections with the city was better than to start a fight they could not win, become banished, and lose their friends. But Pharos would not settle for this.
He set aside his worries and flew up to the severed head of Arctiax, held aloft above the table of the Honored Deicides, and cast Speak with Dead on it, and conjured a Zone of Truth so that all would know what the dead dragon spoke as truth.
“Who are you?” was his first question.
“Arctiax, Lord of Silver Snow,” came the dead dragon’s reply.
"Where are you from?” was the second.
“I hail from beyond the Great Wastes,” the severed head wheezed.
"Who Killed you?"
“Why, you did, Honored Deicide. You, the lot below you, and the mice at the table. The traitorous house Deveraux had no hand in my demise.”
"What is your relationship to House Deveraux?"
“They are traitors. We conspired together in a sacred accord to cement their place above all other houses, the silent rulers of Arcanus, holding the rest of the nation in fear and reverence of their benevolent god king Arctiax, so I might enjoy an opulent slumber and they might reap the harvest of fear they had sewn throughout the city. But the treacherous fools turned their back on me once the final blow had fallen.”
"What would you have us do?" Pharos asked the fifth and final question.
"Avenge me."
During the conversation, a great uneasiness had fallen over House Deveraux members and Inquisitors in attendance. They had begun to slink into the shadows, invoke invisibility behind columns, and otherwise sneak out of the great hall. But House Bouclier, regularly staffed for security in the hall and prepared to detect varied forms of stealth with their enchanted helms, blocked exits and began to make arrests.
The Flamebringers made quick to follow High Inquisitor Olivier up the back stairwell after getting control of their friends, and found him in High Matron Sonilyth’s chambers, standing over her corpse with a strange knife in his hand. Boulcier guards filled the room, and made space for the Flamebringers to enter.
Honestly, I forget how this part went exactly, but it ended with the group realizing that the Olivier that was there was an illusion, he is somehow related to the Omniscient Dawn, and he softballed an offer to join him.
The party refused, rushing up the stairs in hopes of catching the real Olivier before he could get to Vyria Druex, as the heir apparent had been locked in her quarters, but the stairwell exploded with arcane energy before they could reach her. The smoke cleared and found the party stranded on different sections of wall, blown out of the Tree of Silver Night but held aloft by web-like sinews of silvery metal that slowly but surely began to bring the walls back to the tree, healing it.
Five versions of Olivier were scattered across the battlefield. Five versions of Olivier fell in battle, giving off explosions of web as they did.
However, once silence had fallen and they rushed up to Vyria’s chambers, they found her dead and Olivier gone. Her chambers were in tatters, it was clear she had put up a fight, but in the end, there were several incision wounds along her torso and a fatal puncture below her left arm that claimed her life.
But again, Pharos rose to the occasion, calling upon the Light of the Monarch to resurrect Vyria, saving the heir apparent.
In the ensuing days, there was a grand celebration that the corruption of House Deveraux had been burned out of the city by the Flamebringers. While the people celebrated, the Dreux sisters mourned the loss of their mother, but very tactfully requested the group not resurrect their mother. Not only would it go against their beliefs, but their Sonilyth was in a very fragile state when she was murdered, and it would be better for her spirit and the nation if she remained at rest. Vyria also renounced her heritage to the Matron’s throne, allowing it to pass to Dahlia, so that Vyria might lay claim to the seat of the empire that yet remained open in Heloris. She requested that they might deliver her to the capital before they go about their adventures.
In return, during Dahlia’s coronation celebration, the Flamebringers were named the Lords Flamebringer as her first act as High Matron, and given a tithe of land in the north of the Theocracy, now named Arctaxia following the dethronement of the False Arctiax. The land rests where the Gloamwood, Sylva Minerva, and Wystwood mingle along the river Malphurion; a tower named the Beacon.
And while they celebrated their victory, they could not help but notice an advisor who had taken her place at Dahlia's side. A sly dark elf with snow white skin and icy blue eyes, dressed in a red slit cocktail dress reminisce of a Dark Sun baroness they once met, but with a cold air that promised the identity of another.
Rewards Granted
Lordship, deed and title to the Beacon
Report Date
05 Nov 2022
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